Take a NEW Direction! Study Calls In-Car Tech Confusing

A closely-watched new report by J.D. Power and Associates says that even though the quality of new vehicles has hit an all-time high, consumers are growing extremely aggravated by confusing in-car tech and “infotainment” products.

Ugh, it’s fine to complain about the tech, but how scarey is it that we’re complaining about the TVs in our cars?

The J.D. Power study emphasized that “there are year-over-year gains in most areas of initial quality, with one notable exception — audio, entertainment and navigation problems have increased by 8 percent from 2011.” It said: “This continues a recent trend, as problems in this category have increased by 45 percent since 2006 while other categories have improved by 24 percent, on average.”

Hands-free phone systems ranked very high among complaints from drivers — with voice recognition problems getting the lion’s share of the gripes, according to the report.

A lot of those problems are just consumers figuring our what the heck is going on.

The mind-boggling (and once rare) hands-free systems are suddenly growing to be very common in new vehicles and buyers are just thrown into the deep end when it comes to figuring out the new tech, according to Dave Sargent, J.D. Power’s VP of Vehicle Research in the Global Auto Ops Division.

No matter what led to the disconnect — drivers seem to be screaming in the survey: Educate me better on my in-car tech, or take a different direction!